I decided to make this for all the new and old players that want to understand where we are in the plot of zombies. I hope this helps some out.

Nacht was a test map. This was meant as a hidden easter egg at the end of the World at War campaign. It has no relation to the storyline.

The story begins strangely enough at Moon. Maybe not the location, but with the radios. It is here that we learn about Dr. Richtofen and Dr. Shusta and their testing of the matter transference device. When they have success moving a walnut, they decide they need to show their boss, Dr. Maxis. Well when he sees what they have accomplished, he gets extremely angry and tells them that is not the experiment they were supposed to be working on. He then admits to the two that Group 935, the research organization they are all apart of, has signed a deal with the Nazi party to create weapons in exchange for funding of research. Once Maxis leaves, Richtofen suspects that he will steal the plans and publish the findings himself. With this in mind, Richtofen and Shusta decide to continue working so they can be the first to publish the findings.

After a lot of testing, the two are finally ready to test the teleportation of a live subject. Dr. Richtofen volunteers himself for the experiment. As the teleporter activates it does not send him to the receiving device. Instead, he ends up in a dark cave with little light. It is here that he finds the pyramid device. He examines it and decides to touch it. The device shocks him. He then hears someone whispering to him. He believes someone is in the cave with him and thinks it is Dr. Shusta. He asks "Why are you whispering to me?" This is where the voices in Richtofen's head begin. They begin to tell him what to do and such, as can be heard in the maps he makes appearences on as he yells about "The Voices!" Richtofen is then teleported to what we know as Shangri-la. What happens here is relatively unknown, though there are many great theories. What we do know is that Richtofen must have been seen as a god by the native peoples, for his inscription is on the shrine where we find the focusing stone. A great theory for who these people are can be found in the link below.

Dr. Shusta is still in Germany going crazy because he has no idea what has happened to Dr. Richtofen. As he is about to scrap everything and shut down the project, a door opens up in the background and one can hear Dr. Richtofen's voice saying not to scrap anything. His voice has changed from before. He seems a bit crazier than at the beginning of the radios, possibly due to the teleportation and seeing all that he has seen. There are also now voices in his head. It is at this point that he makes Dr. Shusta get into the teleporter with him and see all that he has seen. After they return, they get more people involved with their research and begin to build a moon base, which they found was the location of the pyramid device. Once they have built the base, Richtofen puts Shusta in charge of researching how to control the pyramid device and how it works as he goes back to earth to continue posing as a loyal member of Group 935 for Dr. Maxis. Dr. Richtofen still has a grudge with Dr. Maxis because he would not mass produce the DG-2, aka the WunderWaffe, and knows the only way he can get revenge is by continuing to play along in his part of Group 935.

Dr. Richtofen convinces Dr. Maxis to let him continue working on the teleporter. As work continues, Dr. Maxis has a growing interest in the project and becomes heavily involved. He begins testing with Dr. Richtofen, who is in charge of calibrating the machine. It is through this testing that they begin teleporting subjects and getting zombies in return. He dreams of having an undead army. Maxis wants more element 115 to continue testing the teleportation device. He is sure that the Americans have a healthy supply of the element at the Nevada base. Dr. Maxis decides to test the teleporter on Fluffy, the dog he had gotten for his daughter, Samantha. Once the teleportation takes place, an electrical charge fills the teleportation chamber. After being pressured by Maxis, Richtofen opens the chamber to reveal Fluffy in a zombied, HellHound form. Samantha enters at this time asking what is happening. Samantha sees her dog and runs to it, wondering what has happened. Maxis chases after her to keep her out of the dog's harmful way. As they are in the teleportation chamber, Richtofen locks the door and teleports Maxis, Samantha, and Fluffy away. After this, a zombie outbreak occurs at Der Riese. Employees are taking suicide pills to escape the torture of the zombies. All hope has been lost.

Meanwhile, back on the moon, Dr. Shusta and Dr. Groph are working on solving how the pyramid device works. They have recently discovered a glass tube that is on the pyramid. They know this has something to do with the pyramid, but they don't know what to do yet. While recording their finding, Dr. Shusta sees a rat and kills it. When he kills it, it activates the machine. They have found what powers the pyramid device. When they alert Dr. Richtofen, he begins sending them "shipments" to fill the tanks. Most believe these "shipments" are the native people of Shangri-la. Richtofen captured them and sent teleported them to the moon, where Shusta and Groph killed them to fill the tanks. Dr. Richtofen justifies this by saying that it is all in the name of science. One can tell that Groph and Shusta do not agree with this, as when signing off you hear Groph state "May God have mercy on us all."

They finally complete filling the tanks around the pyramid device and are prepared for Operation Shield to take effect. All they need is Dr. Richtofen at the base and things will be set. When telling Richtofen of this, he says that he will be there soon and that all he has to do is take care of Maxis and Samantha. This is when he traps them in the room with Fluffy. As things are prepared and only awaiting Dr. Richtofen, Shusta and Groph decide that the best way to wait would be to go practice their golf in the Biodome. Before they can do anything though, an intruder is detected. Samantha has found a way to escape the Aether and has teleported to the moon base. Out of fear, she just keeps running until she accidentally finds herself at the pyramid device. The device activates and it is too late for the doctors to do anything. Samantha Maxis has entered the device. They alert Dr. Richtofen of this incident, to which he is not very happy, but has a plan to fix things. He tells Dr. Groph and Shusta to find Dr. Maxis. If the girl is okay, he must be alive somewhere also. He lets them take care of this job as he goes back to prepare his final plans.

After scanning for a while, they finally find Dr. Maxis and teleport him to the moon base against his will. Maxis is not very happy and wants to know what is going on, but still knows that Richtofen is behind everything. Once alerted of the situation, he tries to get Samantha to come out of the machine. After much convincing, she comes out and they have a heartfelt moment. At the very end, Maxis asks one favor of Samantha. To kill them all. With this, a gunshot is heard and the famous laugh that is made when the mystery box moves. With that, one can hear Groph say "We are doomed."

This is when we find ourselves in Verruckt. When Peter, an American spy working at Verruckt, is compromised, the Army sends Tank Dempsey to rescue him. Meanwhile, Peter escapes Verruckt and heads to Shi No Numa where he believes it is safe. Zombies had invaded Verruckt and he had to get out, losing his arm in the process. This is where he is met by Dr. Richtofen. Richtofen kills him and hangs him in the spawn of Shi No Numa. Dempsey is captured at Verruckt by German forces and brought to a German facility where he is tested on along with Nickolai Bilenski and Takeo Masaki. A group of four marines is sent to Verruckt to save Tank, but it is too late. The German army has abandoned the asylum and set the forest around it on fire. This leads to the four marines death.

Nickolai, Takeo, and Tank are now being tested on in the facility. They survive the testing, unlike many subjects, but they have lost a lot of their memory. They don't remember what Richtofen has done to them, but they do keep their personalities. One unlucky subject, a Mexican, died when Richtofen decided to take his spleen out and see if 115 effected it in any way. After testing, Richtofen departs for Shi No Numa where he meets Peter as stated earlier. The three others recover from their treatments and are sent to meet him at Shi No Numa to help Richtofen with his plans. A meteor has fallen to earth at the location of Shi No Numa, which made is a great spot to mine resources and do research on the element. It is here that we get the first radio that was supposed to be sent to Peter. In it, the voice states that Verruckt had been overrun and that Der Riese must be contained at all costs.

The four then head to Der Riese where all hell has broken loose. Zombies are everywhere at Der Riese, a weapons research facility. The crew did not expect for "the Giant" to be overrun as it was. It is here that Richtofen's protoype experiment, the DG-3, is available to the team. After fighting off wave after wave of zombies, the crew gets into one of the teleporters. As a shot is fired from the DG3, the teleporter overloads and instead of teleporting the crew back to the spawn, it teleports them into the future.

Richtofen is amazed by this. He did not realize that the MTD was capable of time travel. What he does realize is that there is a teleporter in a facility he has never been to, Kino Der Toten. This brainwashing facility was as a place to try and control the zombies. It is here that Dr. Maxis tried for a long time to get the zombies to respond and follow orders. There were always problems. Richtofen becomes aware that Group 935 has more hidden than even he knows. As they explore this old theatre, they can tell that it is fallen apart. The facility has probably been out of use for over fifteen years. The crew realizes that zombies aren't the only thing that inhabit this area, as Nova 6 Gas Crawlers enter the fray. An interesting theory on what these actually are is posted below.. As the crew continues to fight zombies, the teleporter again malfunctions and sends them outside of a Russian Cosmodrome. The heroes hop onto a lunar lander nearby and ride their way into the facility.

Once they land, they are confronted by a man's voice who needs help. All we know is that "she is coming" and "the mechanism must be repaired." It is here that Yuri has been working on the Gershe Device, or a black hole bomb. They have also been working on the Cassimir Mechanism. Yuri has been transferred after not making enough progress on the device by Dr. Gersche. Yuri is not happy about this. He complains that he is too smart to just be working on rockets and shooting monkeys into space. He then notices a Matroyshka Doll near him. He has no idea where this came from. Soon, he begins to notice that there was a teddy bear lying around the office. He gets frustrated thinking that someone brought their child to work. Yuri has been doing a lot research on element 115 and knows much more than Dr. Gersche. Gersche's research has stalled and Yuri knows much more than he is willing to reveal. He does not want his information getting into bad hands, such as Dr. Gersche's. Yuri has become hostile and has been frequently talking to himself. There are voices in his head. Samantha keeps telling him to do things and the voices don't leave his head. Yuri decides to visit his old facility and show Dr. Gersche what he has discovered with the Gersche Device. He activates the Gersche Device and Dr. Gersche is sucked in. Yuri is happy because he has fufilled what the voices, Samantha, have told him to do. After a few seconds though, he comes to his senses and questions what he was done.

With that said, let's get back to the voice at the beginning. Dr. Gersche needs help. She, Samantha, is coming and the Cassimir Mechanism must be repaired. After repairing the mechanism for Gersche, he is set free from the Aether that Samantha inhabits. He escapes Samantha's wrath. The heroes fight off tons of zombies here, eventually being teleported by a Gersche Device far into the future. It is here that the heroes arrive at what we know as Call of the Dead.

George Romero wanted to film a zombie movie in Siberia. The problem was that the zombies were real this time. After being captured and zombified himself, he begins to attack the four actors that he had working with him on the film. While the actors scramble to survive, they hear a knock on the door in the lighthouse. On the other side is our heroes. Dr. Richtofen needs a golden rod, otherwise known as the Vril Generator. Well this rod is buried deep inside a submarine that has been frozen under the ice for decades. The cast frees the submarine and in return receive the Vril Generator as a thank you gift. Meanwhile, Richtofen has repaired the teleporter that was in the room behind the door. Once the actors give him the golden rod, the teleport away to Shangri-la, leaving the cast with a Wunderwaffe in return for the help.

When the heroes arrive in Shangri-la, they realize these four stones. When pushed in, the whole setting goes into an eclipse and travels back in time. It is here that we meet Brock and Gary, two explorers who are searching for Agartha, or Hollow Earth. The developers love to play off of conspiracy theories and this is no different. Read a little bit about Agartha here and you can see how it fits into the storyline. After the heroes help Brock and Gary escape death many times, they finally receive the Focusing Stone. When combined with the Vril Generator, these two items can activate the pyramid device back on the moon. With the items found, Richtofen and the crew head to Area 51 where zombies are everywhere. It is here that the teleporter will send them directly to the moon.

We now arrive at Moon. Richtofen's master plan is almost complete. All he needs is to find the artifact to place the generator in. But before he can do that, he must charge the Vril Generator. While he is accessing the computer to charge the generator, the computer freezes and we hear Dr. Maxis tell Richtofen that he will not allow his plan to succeed. Maxis must have known what Richtofen was doing and put a defense up just in case it ever came to this. Richtofen is no idiot though and easily gets past the security measures that Maxis had put into place. With the generator charged, the crew head off to find the artifact. Once found and put into the pyramid, the heroes fill the tank to reveal Samantha Maxis, floating in a cryogenic state. Once Richtofen activates the pyramid device again, four glass tubes appear and need to be filled. After being filled, Richtofen inserts the Vril Generator and switches souls with Samantha Maxis, letting himself take control of the zombies. Samantha is now in Richtofen's body. All seems doomed. Then, a voice comes over the intercom. It's Dr. Maxis. He states that he knows a way to control the damage that Richtofen can cause. After giving Dr. Maxis the arifact and preparing some rockets, Maxis launches three rockets towards the Earth and blows it up. The Earth is not completely destroyed, but it is thought that most of humanity is probably wiped out.

And that's where we are. Where will we end up next? Some say Paris. This is supported by a picture on a bulletin board in Der Riese of zombies in front of the Eiffel Tower. It is also supported by the "Gateway to Hell" on Firing Range, along with the Pack a Punch flags, Quarantine, and the death card on the helicopter. Here's some good links that will give good evidence for this also.

Well that's what I have. Have any questions? Did I mess up? Fire away in the comments. If you believe I have something wrong though, please provide evidence for why you believe it is wrong. No evidence=no dice.

Thanks guys and I hope you enjoyed reading this. Now you know where we stand and you can generate ideas for Black Ops II Zombies with all of these things in mind.

I have one question where does the map Five fit in to all of this? I like what you have and it makes since and I don't know about the whole Paris thing. I don't know where they will go, just I don't think Paris.

As far as I know Five takes place around the same time as ascension. The characters from Five speak to the original characters during ascension so in a way Five chronicles a period of time where the original characters needed help similar to the CotD.

Five is a map that the developers wanted to be a Nacht der Untoten for Black Ops. They wanted to reimagine what it would be like if Nacht had all the current things that were available, such as the perks and Pack a Punch.

Storyline wise, there's not much here as far as we know. What we do know is that according to the dates on the map, it takes place the day before Kennedy was assassinated. We also know that it happens at the same time as Ascension, due to the phone calls. But that's about all we have. I think the biggest question to leave Five with is "Who is the Pentagon Thief?"

And while I respect your opinion and think you are entitled to one, we will be headed to Paris. In fact, at Call of Duty XP last August, the zombie team had a session where they talked about the game. They had a slideshow playing behind them and it had the name of each map, then it's code name. So it would have "Shi No Numa" and under it would be "Swamp." "Der Riese" and underneath, "Factory." When they came to Moon, it said "Moon" and underneath it said "Paris." The developers then explained how they had planned to go to Paris, but then decided that they wanted to end the season on a bigger note.

Here's the clip from CoD:XP. If you want to watch the whole thing, I would not stop you. It's actually very informative and you get to hear what the devs go through in making maps and get some questions answered that I may not have answered in the original post.

Actually, I believe Teddy and Mystery Box are from Samantha. This is mentioned in some of the Yuri quotes from Ascension where he begins to see teddy bears lying around his office. But yes, Richtofen does create the Monkey Bomb during this time.

In one of the files on the BO1 computer, Maxis says something about the teddy bear watching him, that exposure caused it and he says he doesn't trust Richtofen implying that it was Richtofen who exposed the teddy bear to 115.

I'm sure it was exposed to 115, which in a way is Richtofen's doing, but Sam controls the box throughout the game. Her voice is the one heard when it moves. Yuri has the voices of Samantha in his head telling him what to do and he notices the random teddy bears lying around.

The Monkey Bomb was one of Samantha's toys that we know was worked on by Richtofen and engineered into being a bomb.

Maxis did not lock Samantha inside the pyramid. She ran in scared when she first arrived at the moon base. Shusta and Groph brought Maxis from the Aether to the moon base to get Samantha to come out. Then he asks her to "Kill them...all" and there's a gunshot and we don't exactly know what happened. But Maxis didn't lock her up in the pyramid. That was an accident she got herself into.

Oh right cheers for clearing that up. Do you have any idea how the illuminati are involved in the storyline. As you probably know they are frequently referenced and the all seing eye seems to be everywhere. I only noticed the other day that when you teleport on Der Riese you can see the eye there too. Any ideas?

Not the illuminati themselves but references/quotes and the all seing eye. Richtofen:"Illuminati, I work for thee" is just one of the quotes that reference them. Sometimes on the level Five, if you look at the TVs that show you the mystery box location you see their infamous all seeing eye. When you teleport on Der Riese you can see it and also during the Ascension Easter Egg, there is a TV that has the all seeing eye too.

Treyarch loves to play off of conspiracy theories, whether that be through Satanic imagery, Hollow Earth, UFOs, and in this case the Illuminati.

As far as I can tell, Dr. Richtofen is a member of the Illuminati. As you can tell by his quotes, in many maps, he mentions being part of the Illuminati. In fact, he even states that he is trying to escape them, possibly even kill them. Now I'm not going to go through every map's list of Richtofen quotes on YouTube to find that, but they are there. Richtofen was/is a member, but is trying to get out.

Could they play a larger role? I'm sure they could. Here's some great info about it.

There's no reason they couldn't retroactively add nacht into the story.

Here; The survivors of Nacht report back to the states with their newly acquired Ray Gun. After several years of testing they manage to pick apart what makes it so special and they start design on a new weapon inspired by the Ray Gun. The Winter's Howl. It's in it's prototype phase because they were attacked by zombies before they could finish it, which would explain the unfinished casing and exposed circuitry.

I mean they could, but that would be them just trying to throw something together to make it fit. At CoD:XP, they had the maps and their nicknames, as mentioned earlier. Under "Nacht Der Untoten" it said "Prototype." So the developers were just wanting to see the interest level in it more than anything. Verruckt is where the story started, map order wise.

Well at the time, there was some random thread about something dumb that was getting reply after reply and I'm sitting here saying "Are you serious?!?" I just got frustrated. But thanks for the good words.

fadedtitan, good work for the most part on compiling all these references and taking the time to do write this. I don't understand, however, where you get the idea that the wunderwaffe was fired while they were in the teleporter which caused them to go to the future? I didn't see that in the trailer or hear it in any radios. Also if Peter was in Verruckt which I assume is somewhere in Germany, how does it make sense that he escaped and somehow made it to Shi No Numa which is somewhere in the pacific or Japan? I was just wondering if you could clarify this. I know this sounds nit-picky but some of the details don't really add up. Anyway, great work.

1. In regards to the Wunderwaffe, this is just the commonly accepted belief of what happened. It's honestly the only answer I can accept, and I'm a very sketpic person when it comes to theories and zombie storyline. What's obvious is that the teleporter overloaded somehow. The Wunderwaffe was still in the possession of the heroes all the way through Call of the Dead, when the crew gives it as a gift to the actors. So most believe that it was fired and overloaded the teleporter, sending the team into the future. But, as stated, there's not really a radio that tells us this happens or anything. It's just agreed upon by most.

2. From the Terminal(don't know exact code to type in. If you want that, I can find it, but I hope you'll trust me on this and save me the time )

**Please use Agency standard cyphers for operative identity.”

HANDLER’S NOTES”

We successfully inserted Peter into Group 935 as a research assistant based out of Munich. Current location is unknown, but his last transmission suggested he had been transferred from the Der Riese facility to a top secret location known only as Verruckt. Most recent communique indicated that the 935 experiments are barely under control.

Attempts to secure all visible Group 935 research of Element 115 technology have been unsuccessful.

We fear that Peter's identity has been compromised. Sending in a Marine Recon unit to extract Peter from the asylum before it is too late. Operation leader will be one Tank Dempsey

The asylum must be contained at all costs.

"Signed Cornelius Pernell"

So as you can see from this message, Peter was at Verruckt. And as can be seen from the radio transmission at Shi No Numa, he was also there. How he got from one place to the other? I have no idea. It doesn't say that it was a day later that he got there. So it could have been months getting over there or he could have taken a flight. Nobody really knows. But he was at both locations. That is fact.

Yea I just didn't want to go that deep. Do they have a place in the storyline? Sure. But so do A LOT of things, such as Agartha, Vril-ya, and Illuminati, but they're tough to fit into the story. That's more along the lines of hidden aspects of the story.

Do you have any information on why the pyramids are so wrecked on Shangri La and why a similar pyramid to those found on Shangri La is in the bottom left corner of the right page on picture seen on the loading screen for Moon?

We don't really have a ton of info on that right now. It looks like a storm wrecks Shangri-la, picking up some of the pyramids and throwing them into outer space. Perhaps this is them attempting to explain how that pyramid got on Moon in the first place. But I can't answer that for you. All we have is speculartion until they give us more information through radios or little easter eggs.

wait, wait, wait. I just read the whole story and i don't understand alot (not that you wrote it wrong).

I feel like im mentally disabled when reading this.

"The story begins strangely enough at Moon. Maybe not the location, but with the radios."

What!!?? What do you mean by "with the radios".

"Once Maxis leaves, Richtofen suspects that he will steal the plans and publish the findings himself. With this in mind, Richtofen and Shusta decide to continue working so they can be the first to publish the findings."

What fundings, the transference device, the weapons he created, what?

"After a lot of testing, the two are finally ready to test the teleportation of a live subject. Dr. Richtofen volunteers himself for the experiment. As the teleporter activates it does not send him to the receiving device. Instead, he ends up in a dark cave with little light."

Where does this all take place? Where is the receiving device. WHY DOES he end up in some dark cave with little light in the middle of f-ing nowhere.

"It is here that he finds the pyramid device. He examines it until he sees a figure approaching him. Figuring it to be Dr. Shusta, he asks him what happened to the lights. We then hear him ask "Why are you whispering to me." Whoever this character is is unknown, but it was not Dr. Shusta. Richtofen is then teleported to what we know as Shangri-la."

Do we know why the pyramid device is their, who biult it, how big is it, how does it look like, what is its power (i didnt get that too), does it look like a pyramid? Do we still not know who whispered to Richtofen. Why is Richtofen for no said reason randomnly teleported into shangri-la? Someone whispered him something and then he randomnly just goes to a different location, was he in somekind of teleporter that was inside the cave that was scheduled to teleport?

Sorry for all the questions, as you can see this is my first time reading the full story and it seems very mind boggiling. Its like reading a book without the strong discriptions of the setting, charecters, objects, ext. (no offence though, i really appreciate your hard work and you really changed the way i looked at cod zombies).

1. There are radios in almost every map that tell a part of the story. If you listen to the links provided, you will hear what I'm talking about. In Moon, the radios teach us what it was like at the beginning before the zombie outbreak and such.

2. The Matter Transference Device aka the teleporter. Richtofen suspected that Maxis would steal the findings and publish them for himself, as is heard in the radio link provided.

3. The MTD experiments are done in Germany. We don't have an exact location. My guess would be Der Reise. The receiving device is located in the same room, so when he doesn't show up, Shusta gets worried about what happened to Richtofen. No one knows why it sent him to the moon, which is where this cave is located. That's just what happens.

4. The pyramid device seems to have been placed there by maybe aliens or the Vril-ya. No one is quite sure. If you want to see what it looks like and the size of it, just YouTube some Moon gameplay and you'll see it. If you listen to the radios, you'll hear that Richtofen can't find a power source for it, but it does seem energized since when he touches it, it shocks him. We later find that souls power the device as another radio tells us that they kill a rat near it and it begins to fill up the tank that they found. I'd highly suggest you watch some Moon easter egg gameplay.

Richtofen is teleported to Shangri-la after touching the pyramid. It is assumed that the pyramid sent him here. If you notice in Moon, there is a teleporter right above the pyramid. Perhaps the pyramid can also teleport people.

To the question about the voices, I've found out that I do have an error. Richtofen does not see anyone. He just hears someone. Whispers in his head. After touching the pyramid, Richtofen has voices in his head telling him what to do. You can see this on almost every map as he'll yell about the voices. It is assumed that when Samantha and Richtofen switch bodies that the voices stay in Richtofen's body. At the end of the Moon loading screen while playing solo, you can hear Samantha say "Do you hear the voices?" She also makes comments about voices when playing as her on the map.